Bruce Cockburn - Night Train lyrics
[Bruce Cockburn - Night Train lyrics]
Not a knife-throw from here you can
Hear the night train passing
That's the sound somebody makes
When they're getting away
Leaving next week's hanging jury
Far behind them
Prisoner only of the choices they've made
Night train night train
Ice cube in a dark
Drink shines like starlight
The moon is floating somewhere out at sea
I'm an island in the blur of noise and colour
Alcatraz, St helena
Patmos and the Chateau d'If
Night train night train
And everyone's an island edged with sand
A temporary refuge where somebody
Else can stand
Till the sea that binds us like the
Forced tide of a blood oath
Will wear it down dissolve it recombine it
Anyone can die here they do it every day
It doesn't take much effort though
It goes against the grain
And the ultimate forgetfulness of violence
Sweeps the landscape like a
Headlight of a train
Night train night train
Ice cube in a dark
Drink shines like starlight
Starlight shines like glass shards
In dark hair and the mind's eye tumbles out
Along the steel track
Fixing every shadow with it's stare
Night train night train
And in the absence of a
Vision there are nightmares
And in the absence of
Compassion there is cancer
Whose banner waves over palaces
And mean streets
And the rhythm of the night train is a mantra
Hear the night train passing
That's the sound somebody makes
When they're getting away
Leaving next week's hanging jury
Far behind them
Prisoner only of the choices they've made
Night train night train
Ice cube in a dark
Drink shines like starlight
The moon is floating somewhere out at sea
I'm an island in the blur of noise and colour
Alcatraz, St helena
Patmos and the Chateau d'If
Night train night train
And everyone's an island edged with sand
A temporary refuge where somebody
Else can stand
Till the sea that binds us like the
Forced tide of a blood oath
Will wear it down dissolve it recombine it
Anyone can die here they do it every day
It doesn't take much effort though
It goes against the grain
And the ultimate forgetfulness of violence
Sweeps the landscape like a
Headlight of a train
Night train night train
Ice cube in a dark
Drink shines like starlight
Starlight shines like glass shards
In dark hair and the mind's eye tumbles out
Along the steel track
Fixing every shadow with it's stare
Night train night train
And in the absence of a
Vision there are nightmares
And in the absence of
Compassion there is cancer
Whose banner waves over palaces
And mean streets
And the rhythm of the night train is a mantra